Inn revives architectural icon and downtown Bartlesville

By Chris Brawley Morgan

Published: June 17, 2006

BARTLESVILLE — As an office building for 1950s workers, the Price Tower didn't always work. As an architectural icon turned high-style hotel, the Price Tower seems to have landed the perfect job.

The landmark's late- life career change has helped reinvigorate Bartlesville itself. Restaurants, Rogers State University and retail businesses also have opened downtown, where the Price Tower is located. In the last six months, city officials have announced 1,500 jobs will be created or moved here, a coup for this once-struggling northeastern Oklahoma city of 35,000 people.

And then there's the constant stream of Frank Lloyd Wright fans, who travel to Bartlesville to stay in the legendary architect's only skyscraper and the only Wright building to be turned into a hotel.

"People pop in from literally all over the world. They want to see it. They want to be inside it. They want to walk in it. They want to sleep in it," said Jim Fram, president of the Bartlesville Area Chamber of Commerce.

"This has really put Bartlesville on the map."

Right now, in its third year as a hotel, the Inn at Price Tower's occupancy rate is nearly 35 percent — though it is usually full on weekends and during special events. "We are a non-profit running a hotel. And hospitality is a tough field. We are doing it better each month," said Richard P. Townsend, executive director and chief executive officer, Price Tower Arts Center.

Next year, Wright enthusiasts, business travelers and curious tourists should lift the occupancy rate to 45 percent, at which point the hotel will begin to be self-sustaining. After that, the hotel could generate about $100,000 annually for the nonprofit parent organization, the Price Tower Arts Center, Townsend said. "It's a great paradigm. But I wouldn't say it hasn't been a challenge."

The Price Tower has been both a challenge and an architectural wonder since it was built 50 years ago.

The 19-story Price Tower features a "tap root" structure, with the floors cantilevered off a vertical core. Wright created the plan for a 1929 New York project that was never built. Wright declared that the Price Tower, with its green copper paneled sides, was "the tree that escaped the crowded forest."

Bill Creel worked for the H.C. Price Co., which built oil and gas pipelines, when the company moved into the Price Tower in 1956. Employees immediately embraced the panoramic views.

Creel said he often worked on the weekends and almost as often would run into groups of people staring up at the Price Tower. "They were from all over the world."

But there was a downside. "We always had a little trouble with the air conditioning. The elevators were a little crowded," Creel said.

Not only are these elevators the smallest most people have ever seen in this country — three adults are a crowd — but like most spaces in the Price Tower, the elevators are configured with a series of angles.

The Price Tower was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. Several years later, the Price Co. moved to Dallas.

Phillips Petroleum Co. purchased the tower in 1981; two years later, the landmark building won the American Institute of Architects Twenty-Five Year Award, which recognizes architectural design of enduring significance.

Phillips helped refurbish the Price Tower before donating it to the Price Tower Arts Center in 2001.

In 2003, the Inn at Price Tower debuted. New York architect Wendy Evans Joseph transformed former offices and apartments into 21 hotel rooms and suites. Avoiding "Fake Lloyd Wright," her designs pay tribute to Wright's style — but are comfortable. Accents on the furniture, the light fixtures, even the toilet paper holders, are gleaming copper, a link to the patinaed version on the outside edge of the building.

The double-occupancy room price of $145 a night includes continental breakfast in the Copper restaurant and admission to the art gallery and tour of the top floors. The tour features Harold Price's penthouse office in its original condition, though a little faded from sunlight.

The Price Tower experience is so unique that the scrapbook compiled by the local Chamber of Commerce includes stories from both national and international newspapers.

Townsend said, "The Price Tower is an Oklahoma treasure. We represent Oklahoma and its cultural riches to the world."

Arts center officials are planning now for the "next landmark, " a museum facility adjacent to the Price Tower and designed by another world-famous architect, Zaha Hadid, who is based in London. The $30 million project, however, means more fund raising, Townsend said.

The tower generated about $800,000 in taxable income last year, as well as provided 35 jobs, Townsend said.

If 2006 goes as expected, Bartlesville's hotel and motel tax collections will have increased by about $100,000 — to $316,000 — since 1999, according to the Bartlesville convention and visitors bureau.

Bartlesville is booming, and part of the reason is the "vitality" of the Price Tower Arts Center, Mayor Julie Daniels said.

"On any given day," the mayor said, "I can drive down there and I can see someone standing there and taking a picture of the Price Tower."